The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

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Friday, December 29, 2017

Trump administration cuts $285 million from UN budget.

The United States currently pays a mandated assessment of 22% of the United Nations’ "regular" budget and about 28.5% of its peacekeeping budget. Together, the mandated assessments the U.S. pays add up to over $3 billion annually. Moreover, the U.S. has contributed billions of dollars in voluntary donations to various UN agencies and programs, such as the UN Development Program (UNDP), UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). There are also multiple flash humanitarian appeals to which the U.S. has regularly donated. In total, during 2016, the last full year of the Obama presidency, the U.S. contributed more than $10 billion to the UN system. President Trump has pledged to impose more stringent controls over what the U.S. spends on the UN, demanding value for the many dollars American taxpayers pour down the UN money pit. He is starting to achieve some tangible results.When United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley delivered her remarks ahead of the shameful UN General Assembly vote last week condemning President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, she issued a stark warning. “The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation,” Ambassador Haley said. “We will remember it when we are called upon to once again make the world’s largest contribution to the United Nations.”It took just a few days for the Trump administration to use its financial leverage at the UN to push through a reduction of over $285 million off the UN’s 2016-2017 final regular budget, which funds the UN system’s day-to-day administrative costs and some programs. This is on top of the more than $500 million reduction negotiated by the United States last June in the separate peacekeeping budget of $6.8 billion for the 2017-2018 peacekeeping budget cycle.

The latest reduction in the UN’s regular budget is moving the ball in the right direction, with cuts to low-hanging fruit such as travel expenses, consultant fees and costly leases. However, considering that the 2018-2019 regular budget agreed to on Christmas Eve still comes to $5.4 billion, and that the UN’s staff (not counting peacekeepers) has doubled in size from the year 2000 through 2016 while the regular budget (not adjusted for inflation) has risen approximately 119 percent during that same period, there is obviously much more work to be done.

“The inefficiency and overspending of the United Nations are well known,” Ambassador Haley noted in her statement issued by the U.S. Mission to the UN following the budget vote. “We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked.” In future negotiations, she added, “you can be sure we’ll continue to look at ways to increase the U.N.’s efficiency while protecting our interests.”

The mandatory portion of UN funding is for all intents and purposes based on the socialist formula of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” The starting point is to calculate each member state’s mandatory budget assessments based on the proportion of each member state’s gross national product in comparison to the global gross national product. However, that is only the starting point. Many “less developed” nations’ assessments are then adjusted downward through manipulative concessions such as a debt burden discount and a low per capita income discount. Wealthier nations find themselves having to make up the shortfalls.

Even with the reductions just negotiated for the 2018-2019 regular budget cycle, the U.S’s assessed contribution to the regular UN budget alone will drain nearly $1.2 billion from American taxpayers’ pockets over the next two years. While the United States has one of the five permanent seats on the Security Council with veto power, it has only one vote out of 193 member states in the General Assembly. Hence the lopsided vote last week against the Trump administration’s position on Jerusalem. And that anti-U.S. vote was not an aberration. According to a 2016 paper issued by the Heritage Foundation, “Over the past 10 U.N. General Assembly sessions, about 82 percent of the recipients of U.S. development aid have voted against the U.S. most of the time on overall non-consensus votes, and 69 percent have voted against the U.S. most of the time on non-consensus votes deemed important by the Department of State.”

It has been estimated that the U.S.’s assessment for funding of the UN’s regular budget is more than that of 176 other UN member states combined. The 56 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation are estimated to have constituted approximately 8.6% of global production in 2015. However, they only paid 5.6% of the UN’s regular budget and 2.4% of the UN’s peacekeeping budget. Yet they have a disproportionate influence on agenda items of the General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council, particularly when it comes to using these forums to delegitimize and demonize Israel. Their dominance comes thanks to their enormous voting bloc of 56 Muslim member states who usually vote in unison. They often bring with them their non-democratic, often leftist, friends in Latin America, Asia and Africa, as well as at times Western European countries trying to prove their "anti-colonial," "anti-Islamophobic" credentials.

Globalists not surprisingly are upset over the latest UN budget cuts. They liked the days when prior U.S. administrations continued to pour billions down the UN sinkhole while allowing the U.S. to serve as a punching bag for the UN’s many free-riders. For example, Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, was quoted by the New York Times as having said after the General Assembly Jerusalem vote last Thursday, “The hallmark of this administration is not paying attention to the benefits that the United States actually gets in a rule-bound system with international institutions.” He added, “This is not something we can treat in a purely transactional way.”

Despite scandal after devastating scandal, ranging from rampant corruption and out-of-control, unaccountable spending to sexual exploitation of women and girls by UN peacekeepers, the United Nations is still regarded by globalists as the most legitimate arbiter of international norms. Prior U.S. administrations, particularly the Obama administration, enthusiastically embraced the UN. What UN lovers refuse to acknowledge or simply fail to understand, however, is that an insular culture of moral superiority, entitlement and cronyism has built up over the years within the United Nations’ bloated bureaucracy that has been resistant to any real accountability or reform. Way too much of the money the U.S. has contributed over the years to the UN was simply wasted on this bloated UN bureaucracy. Even more money has been wasted on the UN bureaucracy’s self-promotion at a myriad of global conferences and forums set up to address problems that it thinks only the United Nations has the capability and moral legitimacy to address, such as climate change. UN Secretary General António Guterres has proposed various reform initiatives, but so far little has really changed. Moreover, free-riders continue to exploit the UN to serve their perverted agendas.

The Trump administration is finally taking some concrete steps to put an end to the UN gravy train. Nevertheless, there are some more UN budget items that the Trump administration should put on the chopping block right away, starting with the largesse that the United States has dispensed on the Palestinians at the UN through its outsized contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). Since UNRWA’s establishment in 1948, the U.S. has spent approximately $5 billion propping up what was supposed to be an agency for temporary relief until the original refugees leaving Israel after it declared its independence could be resettled in neighboring countries. The United States is presently contributing more than $340 million a year to UNRWA. While the U.S. throws more good money after bad, UNRWA hires terrorists, teaches hate against Jews in the schools it runs, and perpetuates a permanent refugee status for millions of Palestinian descendants whom UNRWA would still consider refugees even after an independent Palestinian state is established within which they can live.

Unfortunately, earlier this year, Ambassador Haley signaled that the U.S. intends to maintain its current level of funding for UNRWA. That would be a big mistake, particularly after the Palestinian-led charge at the UN Security Council and General Assembly to embarrass the U.S. Indeed, the Palestinian leadership has shown its ingratitude for America's generosity by pressing for the UN Security Council and General Assembly Jerusalem resolutions, intended as a rebuke to President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Security Council draft resolution failed to pass because of the U.S. veto. But the Palestinians pressed ahead at the General Assembly. The Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, threatened to unleash “all the weapons we have in the UN to defend ourselves, and we have a lot of weapons in the UN.”

It’s about time that Americans stop paying so much to subsidize the dysfunctional UNRWA, especially while the Palestinians turn around and threaten to use their “weapons in the UN” against the United States. The same goes for the United Nations as a whole. If it continues its wasteful ways and persists in serving as a costly platform to undermine U.S. national sovereignty, the $285 million budget reduction should become just a small taste of what is to come.

Jerry Brown’s pardons pave the way.

On Christmas Eve, California governor Jerry Brown issued 132 pardons and 19 commutations, the latest in the 1,059 pardons and 37 commutations he has granted since regaining office in 2011. Brown thus surpasses the 404 pardons and one commutation during his previous terms as governor (1975 to 1983), and far exceeds the combined 15 pardons and 14 commutations from 1991 through 2010 under governors Pete Wilson, Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Jerry Brown ran for president in 1976, 1980, and 1992 but came up a loser every time. The pardon binge doubtless helps the recurring governor feel the power but there’s more to his story. In an axis with the illegal lobby, Brown seeks to return those already deported to the United States, even those guilty of gun violence.

Hector Barajas entered the country illegally and served in U.S. Army from 1995-2001. After discharge, he developed a “substance abuse” problem and was convicted of shooting at an inhabited vehicle, serving more than a year in prison. Deported in 2004, Barajas reentered the USA illegally and was deported again in 2010. From Mexico, Barajas applied for executive clemency in the form of a gubernatorial pardon, which Brown granted this year, claiming that since jail Barajas has “lived an honest and upright life, exhibited good moral character and conducted himself as a law-abiding citizen.”

This year Jerry Brown signed a package of stringent new gun laws, including restrictions on ammunition. On the other hand, the governor looked the other way at the Mexican national’s use of a firearm in the commission of a crime. As it happens, this is not a new development for Brown.

In December 2015 Muslim terrorists Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik opened fire at a Christmas party in San Bernardino, killing 14 and wounding many others. Brown called it a “terrorist attack,” but did not specifically decry the terrorists’ use of firearms.

Brown has a reputation as something of a centrist but his pardons for violent criminals reveal him as a man of the left. As Orwell said, rats are comrades, victims of capitalist society, and they come in handy when it’s time to do the heavy lifting. Even in California, that’s not where the people are.

In light of San Bernardino, the Steinle verdict and the sanctuary legislation, any observer could be forgiven for believing that Jerry Brown cares more about the concerns of criminal illegals than the legitimate citizens they victimize. The governor’s pardon spree fits the pattern.

The California Democratic Party has come to resemble Mexico’s ruling PRI party, which supports unfettered illegal immigration to the United States. Democrats have come to depend on the votes of illegals such as Gustavo Araujo, who used false documents for 25 years and voted illegally in federal, state, and local elections. How many others have done likewise remains uncertain because California secretary of state Alex Padilla refuses to reveal voter records. Like officials in other states, he is afraid the true figures may confirm President Trump’s claim that some three million illegals voted in 2016.

Jerry Brown ends his final term in 2018 and leaves behind a massive water tunnel project, a boondoggle bullet train, the nation’s highest state income and sales taxes, and fathomless public pension debt. He also bequeaths a virtual one-party state that not only protects and privileges criminal illegals but seeks to reimport them after deportation. That could be the true legacy of this hereditary, recurring non-leader.

Former Education Minister Gideon Saar, who announced his return to politics earlier
this year following a three-year sabbatical, and is often touted as a
contender for leadership of the Likud following Netanyahu’s future
retirement, warned Thursday that the establishment of a Palestinian
state in Judea and Samaria would mean the end of the Zionist enterprise.

Speaking at the Jabotinsky Leadership Conference in Har Herzl in
Jerusalem Thursday, Saar said Palestinian statehood along Israel’s
eastern border would spark a massive wave of Arab immigration into the
area, threatening regional stability.

“We cannot agree to a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. The
establishment of a Palestinian state would lead to Palestinian control
over the borders. Immediately after such a state would be established,
there’d be a flood of ‘refugees’ from Syria and other countries into the
area.”

“Can anyone really guarantee us that within this flood of [migrants]
there won’t be Islamist radicals who have sworn to destroy the ‘Zionist
entity’? Zionism will be pushed backwards – the Zionist enterprise will
be destroyed.”

Despite the threat posed by Palestinian statehood, Saar called for
unity among Israeli Jews, warning that a split between the right and
left could itself be a serious threat to the Jewish state.

“Our political opponents are our brothers and sisters, even if
they’re wrong. We need to respect them and foster dialogue between
ourselves and them.”

“There is nothing worse than infighting between Jews. We need to be
careful about everything we say that could create [divisions].”

Aside from the strategic importance of retaining Judea and Samaria,
Saar emphasized Israel’s rights to the heart of the historic Jewish
homeland.

“We need to remember that we have a right to our land – it’s not just a matter of geo-political strategic interests.”

“This is often overlooked in the [political] dialogue [on the issue], and it hurts us.”

Ido Ben PoratSource: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/239953 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

A last ditch effort by the establishment to wrest control from the president.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow who focuses on Islamic terrorism and the radical left.

The original civil war was fought by farmhands and factory workers, freed slaves and young boys turned soldiers; the new civil war is being fought by lawyers in blue or gray suits not with bullets, but with bullet points.

From the Mueller investigation to Federal judges declaring that President Trump doesn’t have the right to control immigration policy or command the military, from political sabotage at the DOJ by Obama appointees like Sally Yates to Patagonia’s lawsuit over national monuments, the cold civil war set off by the left’s rejection of the 2016 election results has been a paper war largely waged by lawyers.

“The biggest threat to New Yorkers right now is the federal government,” Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of New York recently declared. The radical leftist pol who had once vowed to do everything possible to elect Hillary Clinton was explaining his hundred lawsuits against the government on everything from net neutrality to the travel ban meant to keep out the Islamic terrorists running over tourists near Ground Zero and bombing commuters in the tunnels off Times Square.

Islamic terrorists have killed thousands of people in New York City in the last two decades. Net neutrality’s current death toll hovers around zero. The Federal government is far less of a threat to New Yorkers than their own government which insists that Islamic terrorists should be able to kill them. But it is a great threat to a class of political lawyers whose ranks include AG Schneiderman, Hawaii’s Judge Derrick Watson, Mueller’s team, Sally Yates, the ACLU and countless other #resistance combatants.

The blatant secessionism of the AG’s premise is no longer extraordinary. Not when California’s Jerry Brown tours the world signing independent environmental treaties. Schneiderman is one of a number of blue state attorney generals who have decided that their primary focus shouldn’t be enforcing the law, but resisting the Federal government. But Scheiderman is also articulating the central tenet of the new #resistance which, despite Antifa’s antics, is more dedicated to legal sabotage than actual violence.

It’s still a paper civil war. For now.

The loss of the two elected branches of government has forced the left to default to the unelected third. Like AG Schneiderman, the left’s legal civil war appears to reject the authority of the Federal government. But despite the posturing, blue staters aren’t serious about seceding. Nor have they become newfound converts to the rights of states to go their own way when they disagree with D.C.

New York and California’s #resistance apparatchiks aren’t rejecting the authority of Federal judges. They’re turning to them and relying on them. Instead they’re rejecting the authority of elected Federal officials. Their secession isn’t Federal, it’s democratic. They want a strong central government. They just aren’t willing to allow the American people to decide who gets to run it.

That’s what the civil war is about.

Will the American people govern themselves? Or will Mueller, Schneiderman, Watson, Yates and ten thousand other elites with law degrees be allowed to turn elections into a meaningless farce?

Federal judges have seized previously unimaginable amounts of power by not only blocking orders that had always been considered an essential part of presidential authority on flimsy premises that when dissected amount to a critique of President Trump’s character (not to mention the sovereign entitlement of the University of Hawaii to set national immigration policy for the entire country based on its urgent need for Syrian grad students), but by demanding that agencies under the control of the President of the United States enact their orders, such as accepting transgender military recruits.

The absurd outcomes of these rulings, that the University of Hawaii can set national immigration policy, but not the President of the United States, and that fitness to serve in the military can be determined by a Federal judge, but not by the military or the commander in chief, are only an irrational side effect of a conflict between the elected branches of government and an unelected class of political lawyers.

The Mueller investigation has to be seen in the context of a battle between the democratic powers of the people to choose their own representatives and the lawyers who actually run the government. Elections are being replaced by investigations and litigation as the engines of government. You don’t need to win an election to investigate elected officials. You don’t need public support to sue either.

Government by litigation and investigation shifts power away from voters to lawyers. What was meant to be a last resort for redressing serious violations instead becomes the primary test for holding political office. When investigation and litigation become more powerful tools than en election, then a politician must court the political legal class ahead of the country’s voters and put his obligations to them first.

That intended outcome is also the cause of the conflict.

President Trump refused to put the political class ahead of the voters. The legal civil war is being fought to reaffirm the centrality of the establishment over the voters. The civil war is a conflict between the political class and the people. It’s a struggle over the tools of government being waged with those tools.

Populism isn’t always a threat to the establishment. Obama’s populism didn’t threaten the establishment because its purpose was to reaffirm its power. Hope and Change just meant building a coalition that would vote for more government power in exchange for political goodies. But Trump’s populism challenges the existence of the establishment and its ability to distribute those goodies.

Politicians often run against the political machine. But most just want to pull the levers. Trump has challenged its power and its existence. And that is what set off the civil war.

Legal conflict is the last stage before physical conflict. The lawyers’ war is a last ditch effort by the establishment to wrest physical control of the government from President Trump. Unable to give the orders as the representatives of the people, the left is asserting every possible valid and invalid legal stratagem to run the government anyway. And to run President Trump out of town.

If its legal gambit fails, the left will default fully to mass protests, street violence and terrorism.

But the beauty of the legal gambit is that it allows the left to make common cause with establishment non-radicals like Mueller or the FBI’s Strzok who disprove of President Trump without sharing the left’s larger political agenda. A civil war fought by lawyers is cleaner and less ugly than one fought with bombs and bullets. If President Trump can survive the lawyers’ war, his opposition will be split between radicals who support violence and an establishment that wants to keep things running.That is the Mueller test.

If the Democrats can’t sweep into office on the investigation’s coattails, the whole thing dies with a whimper. As Trump reshapes the judiciary, the judicial activism will matter less. The lawyers’ war will either end with the next election. Or it will begin in earnest. And only voter turnout will decide that.

Meanwhile the civil war continues. It’s a civil war fought with paperwork. But its outcome will determine whether the “government of the people, by the people, for the people” that President Lincoln invoked in the Gettysburg Address will thrive or “perish from the earth.”

Governments are run by bullets and paper, by force and process. Today’s civil war is still a paper war. But if the paper civil war fails, the rest of it may be fought the same way as the original civil war.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268854/mueller-test-and-paper-civil-war-trump-daniel-greenfield Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Rebels near where the Syrian, Lebanese and Israeli borders meet negotiating a deal to leave for other rebel-held areas.

View from Israeli Golan Heights of fighting in Syria (file)

Basel Awidat/Flash 90

Syrian rebels in a pocket of land near where the Syrian, Lebanese and
Israeli borders meet are negotiating a deal with the government to
leave for other insurgent-held areas, rebel officials said on Wednesday,
according to Reuters.

The Syrian army, backed by Russian air power, Shiite militias
supported by Iran and local fighters from the Druze sect, have besieged
the rebel enclave around Beit Jin for weeks. Earlier this week it was reported that the Syrian forces have pushed deeper into the rebel-held enclave, leaving the rebels trapped inside the town itself.

“There is now negotiation on the departure of fighters and those who
wish to leave with them,” Abu Kanaan, an official in a local rebel
group, told Reuters on Wednesday.

“The militias are trying to convince them to evacuate to Idlib...
There has been no agreement reached yet,” said Ibrahim al-Jebawi, an
official with a Free Syrian Army faction familiar with the situation.

The area around Beit Jin is sensitive because of its location next to the Golan Heights.

A recent ceasefire agreement between the U.S., Russia, and Jordan left Iranian-backed militias just three miles from the Israeli border.

Worried by Iran’s expanding influence in Syria after the defeat of
Islamic State, Israel has allegedly carried out strikes against
suspected Iranian targets inside Syria in recent weeks.

Iran has never hid the fact that it is a strong supporter of Syrian
President Bashar Al-Assad and has been providing him with both financial
aid and military advisors against a range of opposing forces.

Near the start of the Syrian civil war, it was reported that then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had personally sanctioned the dispatch of officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to fight alongside Assad’s troops.

A senior Iranian commander said several months ago that Iran will provide military advisors to Syria for as long as necessary and stressed that “the advisory help isn't only in the field of planning but also on techniques and tactics.”

A report last month said Iran is establishing a permanent military base
outside El-Kiswah, located 14 kilometers (8 miles) south of Damascus.
An airstrike earlier this month attributed to Israel reportedly hit an
Iranian compound in that area.

Elad BenariSource: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/239920 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Arafat perpetrated a crime against the Palestinians by rejecting the Saudi peace plan

In a recent TV interview, Saudi writer Mohammed Al-Saed said that over the past century, Arab groups, regimes, and political parties had "peddled in the Palestinian cause and pinned all their mistakes on it to serve their own economic interests and survival." Talking about the missed opportunities for a Palestinian state over the past century, he said that Saudi Arabia had offered a plan which Arafat had rejected, "thus perpetrating a crime against the Palestinians," and that Iraq, Syria, and Egypt were responsible for creating the refugee problem. Writer Muhammad Al-Osaimi said that "there is hardly any Arab country without bad memories of the Palestinians," reminding viewers of their position during Saddam's invasion of Kuwait and of Black September in Jordan. The debate aired on Rotana Khalijiyyah TV on December 12, 2017.

Mohammed Al-Saed: "In 2000, Saudi Arabia invested efforts in an attempt to establish a Palestinian state. As a result of these efforts, the Palestinian leadership was presented with the U.S. administration's comprehensive vision for an independent Palestinian state - a state, not an authority like the current one - with Jerusalem in its entirety as its capital, including the Armenian Quarter, the Jewish Quarter, and the Mughrabi Quarter. The Palestinian Authority would have had airports and seaports, all the refugees would have been allowed to return to the Palestinian land, and Palestinians [originally] from within the 1948 borders would have been allowed to return in phases over 20 years. Some one million Palestinians would have returned to their lands. In the event that they would choose not to return, a compensation fund would have been established, with an initial sum of 20 billion – which would eventually have reached 100 billion - by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Europe, and Japan...

"The truth is that the agreement was on the verge of being signed, but Yasser Arafat rejected it, thus perpetrating a crime against the Palestinians.

"Why should we pay the price for what Yasser Arafat did to his own people?

[…]

"In 1939 [sic], the first conference for world peace was convened, and it embraced the Palestinian cause. At the time, there was only a small number of Jews - Arab Jews - living in Palestine, and all they asked was to be represented in the parliament of the future Palestinian state. This idea was rejected, and less than a decade later, the partition was declared. The partition allowed for a small Israeli state, but unfortunately, it was rejected by the large Arab countries of that time. Saudi Arabia was a new state, and it does not bear the responsibility for that. Iraq, Syria, and Egypt asked the original [Arab] population to leave, because they were about to launch a war to crush the Jews and the Israelis in their new state... - And throw them into the sea... King Abdulaziz was against this. He said: Do not tear the people from their land.

[…]

"But they opposed him and asked the Palestinians to emigrate, and this is why there are displaced [Palestinians] in the Arab world today.

[…]

"Saudi Writer Muhammad Al-Osaimi: The Palestinians got themselves involved in the Arab crises. There is hardly any Arab country without bad memories of the Palestinians. Why? Because they interfered in many Arab issues. We all remember their position when Saddam invaded Kuwait. Another example is Black September in Jordan.

[…]

"All those groups, regimes, and political parties over the past 70, 80, or 100 years of modern Arab history peddled in the Palestinian cause and pinned all their mistakes on it, in order to serve their own economic interests and survival. But I would like to say to our Palestinian brothers, who have turned against us unjustly: Why do you want Saudi Arabia to pay the price for the mistakes of your fathers, forefathers, and leaders in the course of a century?"

[…]

MEMRISource: https://www.memri.org/tv/saudi-writers-blame-arab-states-palestinians-why-should-ksa-pay-price-for-your-forefathers-mistakes Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The
international Red Cross and the Vatican conspired to aid thousands of
Nazi war criminals and collaborators, including German SS officers Adolf
Eichmann and Josef Mengele. Its wartime record is even worse.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has a startling
and consistent history of anti-Semitism, despite its founding and
reputation as an “independent, neutral organization.” Although mandated
to eschew taking sides in international and internal armed conflicts
and to protect victims of those conflicts — including wounded soldiers,
prisoners of war, refugees and civilians — ICRC anti-Semitism emerged
prior to World War II, broadened to encompass anti-Israelism after
creation of the Jewish state and has continued ever since.

In
the 1940s, it failed to intercede on behalf of Jewish Holocaust victims
and was complicit with the Vatican’s protection of Nazi war criminals
and collaborators.

Its modern-day expression of anti-Jewish sentiment was manifested in an initial refusal to
accept the symbol of Israel’s own emergency aid organization, the Magen
David Adom, while welcoming the Red Crescent of Muslim countries.

It provided solicitous aid to
Arab-Palestinian terrorists whose homes were destroyed by the Israel
Defense Forces in reprisal for and to prevent deadly attacks against
Israel.

The ICRC also supported and glorified terrorism in a tree-planting ceremony honoring imprisoned Islamic terrorists who were guilty of murdering Jews.

It has unfairly singled out Israel as an “illegal occupier” and has falsely labeled Israel guilty of
an apocryphal “Jenin massacre.” In addition to these actions, the ICRC
has failed to condemn Hamas’ use of human shields and has not recognized Israel’s right to self-defense. Instead,

it
has demonstrated a complete lack of sensitivity for the plight of
Israeli civilians as perennial victims of rocket attacks and suicide
bombings.

Remarkably, the ICRC — arbiters of the humanitarian
standards of war by dint of their stewardship of the Geneva Conventions —
recently instituted new policies prohibiting
return fire upon civilian-inhabited areas. In effect, it empowered
terrorists to fight worry-free amongst the general population.

Given this recent history, the organization’s reputation as a purveyor of “neutral humanitarianism” rings hollow.

Steinacher explores the
institution as an organization determined to relieve suffering on the
battlefield and “humanize war” with basic care and medical services for
wounded soldiers on through to its post-WW II expansion of the Geneva
Conventions. In this highly readable account, chock-full of interesting
facts and trenchant insights, he portrays an organization with
political, religious and ideological “neutrality” as a core philosophy
that assumed the role of an impartial, independent trailblazer amongst
the budding humanitarian movements of the day.

Steinacher explores
the validity of this founding premise in light of the ICRC’s checkered
history, the competitive environment that existed amidst Red Cross
branches for lead agency status and the impact of the ideological
leanings of its politically ambitious administration. The
Red Cross, based in Geneva and largely funded by the Swiss government,
aligned with Swiss World War II allegiances and government policies of
the time. According to Steinacher’s research, despite an avowed stance
of neutrality, the Swiss government failed to condemn Nazi persecution
of civilians and demonstrated an unwillingness to assist Jewish
refugees.

As early as 1942, Swiss officials knew that Jews were
being exterminated in Nazi death camps, but they instituted a strict
visa policy which included a special “J-stamp” for Jews seeking asylum.
Instead, the Swiss government required the Swiss Jewish community to
fund assistance to Jewish refugees.

Swiss “neutrality” was
further compromised by participation in a military medical mission
supporting the German war effort against the Soviets and by economic
cooperation with Hitler’s regime, including provision of raw materials
and supplies for German weaponry.

Steinacher further reveals that
the Swiss failed to assist Allied troops, that 700 Swiss citizen
volunteers fought for the Waffen-SS and that Swiss art dealers eagerly
traded in art works stolen by the Nazis from Jews.

In 1945, when
Allied victory loomed, the Swiss expeditiously cooled their relationship
with the Nazis and began denying entry at the border to Nazi soldiers
and government officials.

Steinacher portrays the ICRC leadership
as similarly plagued by anti-Semitism and favorably disposed to Germany
and Italy. ICRC leaders were notably more concerned with communism than
Nazism and were determined to follow the Swiss government’s lead and
cautiously avoid any direct criticism of and confrontation with the
Nazis. The alleged “neutral” organization failed to divulge Nazi plans
to systematically murder European Jews known to them as early as 1941.
According to Steinacher, ICRC officials even visited a Nazi death camp
with full knowledge of an ongoing genocide and issued a mere “mild
critique.” Despite letters of desperation from Jewish prisoners as
early as 1933, an inspection tour of Dachau and the laying out of the
“final solution” at the 1942 Wannsee Conference, Red Cross leadership
did nothing to intervene in the mass extermination of Jews.

The
author writes that the ICRC attempted to excuse their inaction by
claiming that cooperation with the German Red Cross, whose medical
personnel had sworn an oath of loyalty to Hitler, was necessary so as
not to jeopardize their work on behalf of POWs. Furthermore, they
incredulously subscribed to the belief that Germans were forced to go
along with Hitler and that very few were responsible for wartime
atrocities.

After the war, the ICRC focused on protecting German
POWs in Allied custody, helping former prisoners trace missing family
members and providing civilian relief and assistance to war-torn
regions. They did work with other aid organizations to provide survivors
with food parcels financed by Jewish money.

Steinacher depicts
the ICRC as reluctant to assist Jewish survivors and highly sympathetic
to the plight of German expellees facing Allied powers wrath. The
organization went so far as to assist Germans and Eastern Europeans
ineligible for existing refugee programs due to their wartime
activities. They even provided substitute travel documents, or “titres
de voyage,” of their own creation. These were easily obtained sans
screening procedures and required only vague non-standard guidelines for
anyone wishing to immigrate overseas. Further, despite no U.S.
government recognition of these documents, they were accepted by Vatican
delegates, some of whom were Nazi supporters.

In 1947, this
travesty was revealed in a U.S. State Department report, cited by
Steinbacher, that exposed how the international Red Cross and the
Vatican conspired to aid thousands of Nazi war criminals and
collaborators, including German SS officers Adolf Eichmann, a major
Holocaust organizer, and Josef Mengele, who performed human experiments
on Auschwitz concentration camp prisoners. The ICRC and the Vatican
provided false identities and papers, enabling thousands to stealthily
leave Europe and evade justice.

The Nuremberg trials exposed the
depth to which the ICRC and the Swiss government turned a blind eye to
German atrocities, making their “humanitarian neutrality” a fiction.
Unfathomably, ICRC officials viewed Germans as war victims and even
criticized “undue Jewish influence” manifested in what they viewed as
the “vengeance” of the Nuremberg trials. Appallingly, ICRC leader, Carl
Jacob Burckhardt, a Swiss diplomat and historian, opposed the Nuremberg
trials, which he disparagingly referred to as “Jewish revenge”
masquerading as justice. He was outraged that Jews played a role in
denazification and the prosecution of Nazi war criminals and believed
that a plot existed to ethnically cleanse 20 million Germans from their
homeland.

Following the trials, an Italian newspaper revealed
that the Vatican and the ICRC were complicit in a joint effort to host
40 Nazi criminals and provide them with travel documents. Since the
American Red Cross enforced a strict policy of not admitting Nazis or
Nazi conspirators, a great deal of friction existed with the ICRC, which
not only assisted ethnic Germans, but also fought against repatriation
efforts for many who falsely claimed they had been forced to fight for
the Nazis in order to obtain post-war aid and protection.

A few
years after the war’s end, as the State Department focused on other
matters deemed more urgent — “illegal Jewish emigration,” reforming the
Geneva Conventions with Soviet concurrence, the exigencies of the Cold
War — priorities changed. The ICRC began rehabilitating its tainted
reputation and reestablishing its legitimacy before the world,
especially the Russians. The future of the disgraced ICRC as a
humanitarian organization and the governing body’s continued existence
was perilously threatened. The organization’s reputation was severely
damaged by its failure to speak out against the Holocaust, its
allegiance and complicity with the Nazis, its limited aid to civilians,
and its lack of commitment to significantly assist Soviet POWS.

The
Red Cross headquarters risked being supplanted by its arch competitor,
the Swedish Red Cross, viewed as exemplary for its efforts rescuing Jews
and assisting concentration camp survivors. Hubristically, the ICRC
resented being overshadowed by the Swedish agency’s accomplishments and
disparaged what they viewed as impossible demands by the U.S. and Jewish
organizations, even characterizing Jews as ungrateful. Tensions existed
among other Red Cross chapters, which resented the ICRC’s privileged
position to recognize new national societies, its guardianship of the
Geneva Conventions and the requirement that chapters fund the Geneva
central office. Following its signing of the revised 1949 Geneva
Conventions and despite its failings during the Holocaust and after
World War II, the ICRC managed to hold on to its position at the helm of
the Red Cross and maintain its status as a so-called “neutral
humanitarian” organization.

In Humanitarians at War, Steinbacher
effectively examines ICRC activities and policies from before World War
II and afterward. He exposes the agency’s shameful wartime record and
its indifference to the persecution and murder of Jews in Nazi-occupied
Europe as it hid behind a facade of neutrality.

However, the book
falls short as Steinacher too charitably steps away from a full,
searing indictment of the organization. He cites the ICRC’s 1990s
apologia for allowing Nazi leaders to escape and its alleged regrets to
Holocaust victims, calling them a laudatory attempt to “face its moral
failings during the war.” He commends the organization’s efforts to
rectify past mistakes and extolls its formidable achievements in
expanding and reforming the Geneva Conventions, improving POW policies,
and safeguarding civilians and war victims. Steinacher concludes that
even with the best of intentions for neutrality, humanitarian
organization efforts are ineluctably clouded by political
considerations and the exigencies of the day.

But, ultimately,
the words of Nobel Laureate, prolific author and Holocaust survivor,
Elie Wiesel, best speak to the ICRC’s WWII record, “When human dignity
is at stake, neutrality is a sin, not a virtue.” Janet Levy MBA, MSW, is an activist, world traveler, and freelance journalist who has contributed to American Thinker, Pajamas Media, Full Disclosure Network, FrontPage Magazine, Family Security Matters and other publications. She blogs at www.womenagainstshariah.com Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/authors/detail/janet-levy#ixzz2loiYFuxQ Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21473 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Fatah posted on its Twitter account a photo of a young boy hurling
rocks with a slingshot, along with an explanation to Palestinian Arab
children on how best to throw rocks, watchdog Palesitnian Media Watch (PMW) reported.

Fatah's tweet reads:

"In order to hit the target, there are three conditions:

1. Stand stable and balance your legs, arms, and body well2. Focus your gaze on the center of the target, and do not look at anything else3. Keep the desired balance between your body and your weapon; you
are the one that controls the weapon, and not the other way around

If you did not understand this, read it again, and if you still have not understood, here is a pictorial example for you."

PMW called on UNICEF to issue a stern condemnation of
Fatah's recruiting children to commit acts of terror, since according to
PMW, "Recruiting children to attempt to kill others and to endanger
their own lives is clear child abuse."

PMW has exposed similar posts by Fatah calling for violence.
In one post on Facebook, Fatah urged Palestinians to "strap on your
weapon," while in others the movement called for "rage," and to
"continue the intifada."

U.S. spy satellites have caught Chinese ships selling oil illegally to the North.

According to Chinese customs data, Beijing has stopped selling oil products to its largest trading partner, North Korea. China had previously refused to buy coal or iron ore from the Kim regime.

But U.S. satellites showed Chinese ships trading for oil with North Korean vessels just recently, raising questions about the Chinese commitment to denying North Korea energy supplies in accordance with U.N. sanctions.

China did not export gasoline, jet fuel, diesel or fuel oil, nor did Beijing import any coal or iron ore, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing Chinese customs data. It was the second straight month China did not export any diesel or gasoline to Pyongyang, according to the report."As a principle, China has consistently fully, correctly, conscientiously and strictly enforced relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea. We have already established a set of effective operating mechanisms and methods," China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.The U.N. sanctions, implemented earlier this year, aimed to dramatically limit oil products to North Korea as retaliation for their nuclear and missile testing.

According to South Korea's Chosun Ilbo, U.S. spy satellites have caught Chinese ships selling oil to North Korea thirty times in the last three months.

According to South Korean government sources, the satellites have pictured large Chinese and North Korean ships illegally trading in oil in a part of the West Sea closer to China than South Korea.The satellite pictures even show the names of the ships. A government source said, "We need to focus on the fact that the illicit trade started after a UN Security Council resolution in September drastically capped North Korea's imports of refined petroleum products."The U.S. Treasury Department placed six North Korean shipping and trading companies and 20 of their ships on sanctions list on Nov. 21, when it published spy satellite images taken on Oct. 19 showing a ship named Ryesonggang 1 connected to a Chinese vessel. The department noted that the two ships appeared to be illegally trading in oil from ship to ship to bypass sanctions.Ship-to-ship trade with North Korea on the high seas is forbidden in UNSC Resolution 2375 adopted in September, but such violations are nearly impossible to detect unless China aggressively cracks down on smuggling. The problem is that any oil embargo imposed on the North in the event of further provocations will probably be futile as long as illegal smuggling continues.It is uncertain whether the Chinese government is deliberately looking the other way, but it seems unlikely that it is unaware given the sheer volume.

The fact that the trades take place in international waters gives the Chinese government plausible deniability. But given how tightly the Chinese government keeps track of its trade, it is highly unlikely that Beijing is unaware of the smuggling.

What is the purpose of telling the world they are obeying U.N. sanctions while surreptitiously still selling oil to the North? The fact is, a complete cut-off of oil to the Kim regime would result in the Chinese government's worst nightmare coming true: hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of refugees flowing over their border with North Korea. Better to play a public game of appearing to adhere to U.N. sanctions than the prospect of risking chaos erupting on the border.

North Korea is the most heavily sanctioned state in U.N. history, and the consequences for ordinary people have been catastrophic. The U.N. Food Program estimates that 18 million people are at risk of starvation due to Kim's maniacal obsession with building nuclear weapons and a drought that severely cut food production this year. Even North Korean soldiers who have recently defected have shown signs of malnutrition.

What this adds up to for China is a humanitarian disaster if North Korea can't feed its people. The U.N. program recently cut back daily food rations to the most vulnerable North Koreans – pregnant women, women who recently gave birth, and children – to just 66% of the minimum requirement to live. If citizens receiving international aid can't be fed, what does that mean for the masses of North Koreans who can't get access to the food program?

Kim has made it clear that he doesn't care about his own people's lives. There is a real danger that if the regime begins to collapse, Kim will launch his missiles in a spasm of violence and death that would seal the fate of his regime – and take many innocent people with him.

Rick MoranSource: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/12/china_has_halted_the_sales_of_oil_products_to_north_korea_but.html Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.